Voters’ response to vote buying a case study of the Shama District

Abstract

Each election year and in almost every local and institutional elections, the issue of vote buying surfaces. Vote buying has almost become part of every election in Ghana. While the menace is on the increase, it is unclear whether votes bought translate into votes for the buyer or the buying party. This work sought to investigate whether the incentives given to voters affect voters’ decisions at the polls. It also looks at whether Ghanaians are conversant with the laws and legislations on elections and for that matter vote buying. The mixed method design was used for the study. Data from questionnaire was triangulated with interviews. Non-probability sampling method was used to select the sample of district, communities and respondents for the study. The Pearson Chi-Square was used in finding significant differences. The p-value is the probability for showing differences and a critical value of alpha=.05 was adopted for sig differences in the statistical analysis. The study revealed among other things that: (a) Items that are used to buy votes include silver pans (basins), cloths, gas cylinders, laptops, money, outboard motors, and wellington boots; (b) Incentives used to buy votes influence the decisions of 27.3% of voters and (c) During vote buying, conditions are not actually attached to the incentives except where there are doubts that one wants to take the incentive without reciprocating with his/her vote. Enforcing laws on vote buying by all stakeholders including the police, the judiciary, the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) and resolving to fight corruption among leaders who also use all means to make money to engage in vote buying would go a long way to solve the menace.